does your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband have to have the same interests as you?

Like Mark said way up there, the rest is just detail.

I've been married twice, totaling 25 years. One husband and I had nothing in common, whatsoever, but, we were both ambitious and that energy fed off of each other. We were together 13 years, took seperate vacations, had seperate friends...marriage died because we just developed into different areas.

Second marriage, which was 12 years old, we had everything in common, so it was like being with a best friend. Problems developed, however, because of our competative natures, which meant we were fighting for the same job, recognition, etc. Marriage ended badly, too much tension.

Now, I'm with a same sex partner,and I have the best of all worlds. We have a deeply shared interest in films, music and festivals, but, she has her things that she does without me and I have mine. We've struck a nice balance of shared time, solo time, shared friends, private friends.

It's the best relationship that I've had in my life. I don't know if it's because I'm wiser, have made better partner choices, or just luck.

I figure that if you're already asking these questions, the blow flies aren't far behind, laying eggs in the dead relationship.

No, but it helps.

But we're both nerds, and so it works mighty fine. People would seriously think we were retarded if they overheard some of our conversations.

My wife and I [missus] have loads not in common, but there's some common ground.

What has mattered most in our 18 years together is the trust we have in each other and the enjoyment of being in each other's company.

The last relationship failed because we had parallel sets of interests which looked compatible at a distance but close up were irreconcilable.

We have fairly equal taste in movies. She once worked at *the* specialty video shop in town, and so is quite knowledgeable of film lore and equally dismissive of those who take it too seriously. We're both way into big hollywood stuff at the moment, and have similar paths of analysis around movies. We both read, with equal amounts of trash, classics, scifi, politics, etc.

Most importantly, as it's where our academic/social efforts are, our politics are the same. We met in a Labour Studies class, and hooked up while running for election in our student society. We've got comparable analyses of society, and equally comparative takes on solutions. We're also equally anti-social, and have almost identical character judgement. Also, she's 6 years older than me, though that hasn't been a problem at all.

I met my previous girlfriend through similar music tastes, and we were quite horribly mismatched, in every other way. I thought music was so important to me that it would naturally inform my relationships. It seems that it isn't that important after all, and, despite my fears, I can keep up my interests without a partner equally engaged.

I'm really happy, and quite lucky.

(can he play "The Boy with the Arab Strap" yet?)

- We both adore Yoko Ono, Pet Shop Boys, and Bjork
- We both love experimental art and especially experimental electronic music
- She hates Beck and Tom Waits with a passion, while i luv em
- I love kitsch, she thought it was pointless

When i found out she was a die-hard Sifl & Olly fan i was convinced i had met the one. Someone who loves the cute absurdity of Sifl & Olly is a rare find!!

i never go for relationships where we have too much in common in terms of interests, theres always some overlap but it makes it more interesting to be with someone different and if they are too similar to you isnt it kind of narcissistic (sp?)

sex is probably the only shared interest i look for, but its not like you can tell that until you get involved anyway.

Every time he comes to my house, he throws a truffle wrapper on the floor. I am not interested in that.

You should be, throwing truffle wrappers on the floor is the best!

My gf is 8,000 miles away. I am not interested in that.

whos_step otm

there's a Chris Rock line that goes something like "you're never going to find someone who likes Seinfeld and the Wu-Tang Clan", which is pretty otm. There does need to be some amount of shared interest tho, can't spend your entire life tolerating shit you're not interested in.

Sure you can.

yeah, but what a waste of time.

whos_step otm

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, May 10, 2009 5:26 AM (7 hours ago)

plus you can develop shared interests together that you didn't have before, thus ensuring your relationship is more than the sum of its parts

I'm pretty much Captain Fail when it comes to romance, but this seems OTM^^^

The interests of my long time gf barely overlap with mine. We get along marvelously, because I still respect the stuff she's into even if it's not really my thing, and vice versa.

You have to have some basis for enjoying time together other than snogging or rolling in the hay. Otherwise all the time you spend not snogging or rolling in the hay will seem tedious, irritating or empty. That might work for a very short time, but it's bound to wear thin before too long.

i like Seinfeld and the Wu-Tang Clan

jim

well theyre interested in me so

z_s otm - it's totally not about sharing the same interests, but having respect for and an interest IN your partner's interests. and sometimes your partner will help you find interests you never had before.

i didn't get into serious book-collecting till my husband introduced me to it; i didn't know anything about small press stuff till we both began exploring it and discovered we were both really into it; we both got into a particular genre of art around the same time. our tastes do tend to overlap in a lot of areas, but are def not the same.

worst mistake you can make going into a relationship with someone whose interests you don't like or respect: having the expectation that you will be able to 'convert' them into loving everything you love.

zs and justine otm. i have found myself incredibly attracted to people whose interests i have never thought about before, but when you have the right connection, those interests become your interests. or, even if you find yourself not into whatever they're into, you can still respect and appreciate that they're into whatever they're into, and that goes a long way.

this should not be confused with liking something as a means to get someone to like you - which people also do.

and which rarely works for longer than 5 min

sometimes thats all it takes tho

'must like seinfeld and wu-tang'.

i think thats a fair enough request.

We seem to be talking about the difference between affinity for, similarity between, and identity of interests. If you at least have a certain affinity for the interests of your bf/gf, then you should be ok.

We share a great enthusiasm for alcohol.

My fianceé is a Tennessee Titans fan. I mean, sheesh.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, August 4, 2004 7:55 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

how times change

lol

my bf hates seinfeld and considers wu-tang old school rap

dumpable offenses imo

i hate seinfeld but i don't know how you can like both, they seem like two things that you have to like one or the other
or is that the point of the joke

i like both

xpost HOOS!

Yea I like both as well.

I was hoping "I am not interested in that" was gonna take off as a meme (within this thread only)

i am not interested in seinfeld is all
i am interested in wu-tang

u should date my bf

i mean i basically had stars in my eyes the day i was at Spider House cafe and saw a pink haired chick in a Devin the Dude tour shirt with some philosophy book on her table while she blogged

but i did not approach her because i just assumed it never would have worked etc

also i had a gf iirc

girl sounds like a nightmare

internet dating has refined this whole thing into a system of checkboxes and i think loads of people actually imagine that if their list lines up with someone else's then BAM it ought to work. but people like things in reaction to or in sympathy with some person or scene in their lives rather than the thing qua thing, and it's the motion of those reactions or sympathies that matter more, imo, though how you'd work that into a list of checkboxes is beyond me

I would never be able to stomach a republican. Or someone who didn't approach life with a general lustiness.
My husband and I have been together 20 yrs, and our tastes/interests are very different, with a few intersections. But we're both rabid lefties and gluttons.

and both psychotically devoted to our dog.

every time my friend matt, who is from philly, quotes seinfeld (which i have never seen before) he says to me: "sorry, east coast humor."

hahaha

Em and I have loads of shared interests, some that date from before we were together, and that helped establish us together, I guess, and some that have grown over the time we've been together. If anything we probably don't have enough separate interests at the moment.

anything we probably don't have enough separate interests at the moment.

can relate to this.

i mean i basically had stars in my eyes the day i was at Spider House cafe and saw a pink haired chick in a Devin the Dude tour shirt with some philosophy book on her table while she blogged

― I'm not some HOOS for someone's lust to snack on! (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, May 10, 2009 5:06 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
but i did not approach her because i just assumed it never would have worked etc

also i had a gf iirc

― I'm not some HOOS for someone's lust to snack on! (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, May 10, 2009 5:09 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
girl sounds like a nightmare

― (b)admin (roxymuzak), Sunday, May 10, 2009 5:11 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha i was so rude

a month ago

think you were pretty otm imo, sorry hoos.

true i run screaming from anyone who blogs

hi harbl

;)

; )

y the long face

lol

more realistic

fwiw my new gf does not blog

what a disaster for blogdom

http://www.zgeek.com/forum/gallery/files/3/4/9/6/kane_clap.gif

I enjoy both Seinfeld and the wu-tang clan, two things that share the accents of my hometown. Trying to get my head around how these things could be mutually exclusive I think requires me to mentally transport myself somewhere far far away.